50 Piantings in 50 days

Pink Paradise #26
This shoe is very stylish and has some type of jewelry on the top, looks like an earring. Today being the 27Th of February, I should have 29 paintings by tonight. I have two in progress one is not working out, some orange ugly shoe that I thought would be easy to do, but is not, it seems solid colored shoes are more difficult than the ones that have design or more than one color. I realized that I had left a message at the gallery when I picked up my panels because I was missing one. They must have forgotten to call me back and I forgot to follow up. Now I can only make one mistake, yikes! I emailed to see if they would send me a panel. I think I already made a mistake with Orange Smoothie. Aha! No more mistakes for you Missy. I'm getting burnt out and tired, hopefully I will recover this weekend.

50 Paintings in 50 days

OVER THE HUMP #25 Leopard Mary Jane's
Dear friends thank you for looking and for all your support and comments. As I write this I'm in a daze, we are officially over the hump (25 more to go), I can hardly believe I'm writing this. It has been no doubt a gruelling task, the hardest part; discipline to sit at the easel until the piece is finished. According to my calculations I should have 50 completed by March 20 and then deliver by Wednesday March 25Th. Now that I think about it I'm going to feel a little sad that some of these will be sold, among them and with hope that they won't sell will be the Japanese shoe, the red valentine day boots, the over the knee stiletto boots, red hot flames and some others that I consider took so much work. The only way to think is that someone paid to enjoy my work and that some of these little pieces found a home. It's time to celebrate and enjoy!

50 Paintings in 50 days

Tres Colores #24

Three colors and a very difficult background to pull off. The inside is supposed to look gold, but it is almost over the hump. After I take the picture I see what needs to be corrected and on this one some of the edges need to be softer, the background needs more paint. I found out that after I sand the top layer of gesso, the paint floats on top and the panel has lack of tooth, it doesn't grab the paint. More corrections later on this one.

50 Paintings in 50 days

I corrected this painting because the shadows on the shoe in the back bothered me, I made the area behind the shoes darker and also the blue on the shoe in front was glaring. I took this picture in better light.


Japanese Box Shoes #23
Seems like I've been painting torture shoes all day today. You can imagine bandaging your feet for yours so they can look small and fit into these boxy pair. Two more...today, Sunday, I should have 24. I will fix the picture tomorrow, I think it's a little blurry. If I complete two tomorrow I will be on time.

50 Paintings in 50 days

Blue Torture #22
Getting really close to the middle of the game. This one only took an hour and a half to complete and I discovered how to make a good gold color to add to my color recipe book. This picture does not do the painting justice, the colors are more beautiful than in the photograph. It is so late and I have to work out of town tomorrow and must get up early, nevertheless this is done and almost over the hump.

50 Paintings in 50 days

Ole! #21
It was so late last night when I was trying to finish this shoe and I chose it for it's simplicity, but didn't think I was going to pull it off, it actually looked pretty dull in the picture, surprise! I'm trying really hard not to fall so far behind so that I can't catch up this is #21, three more to go today and I will be even.

50 Paintings in 50 Days

Latin Viola #20
I loved painting this shoe, I would buy a pair of these, the color is so feminine and soft. It's a real Spring shoe. We are almost over the hump, just a few more or three to be exact. I should have 24 by the end of today. I will also be posting number 21 which was finished last night. Question is can I complete three today? If I do I will post them this evening, sad thing is I'm running out of simple shoes to paint.

50 Paintings in 50 days

Sports heel # 19
If you ever thought of running in your high heels this is the shoe for you. I'm getting faster at painting these little 6x6 inch paintings. I should have 22 completed by tonight, this weekend I will have to do two a day in order to be up to par. The artist progress reception is next Thursday and I'm almost over the hump. As soon as this is over a vacation is due, hopefully these little shoe paintings will have enough red dots to pay for the expense. They will be for sale at the 20th Street Gallery in Sacramento, CA.

50 Paintings in 50 days

Cafe Latte #18
The shoe is not very attractive and I couldn't figure out what color to use on the background, I might modify to tone it down or make it warmer. I'm trying not to get into a painting that has too much detail so I don't get behind, at the expense of aesthetics, perhaps with the right outfit it would be a knock out. On a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of difficulty, I consider this about 4. Today is day number 20 of the 50, if I complete one tonight or two, I will be at par, as it stands right now I'm one behind.

50 Painitngs in 50 days

Pretty in pink #17
Completed today, Monday, number 17 of 50, is it too late to quit? I posted five today that where completed since Saturday, scroll down to see the rest, comments are welcome. It is now 3:50p.m. I haven't had lunch, I went to bed late and I'm still in my pajamas. I had to finish this one, I'm so close to catching up, I just need to do today's and that will be 18. I have no Idea how I got so behind? For a beginner like me if I am one behind, it's too much, since it takes me about two to four hours for each painting. I don't know what this girl in the painting is doing, but I like it. I will work on the background as time allows, I found out if I have a dark background I have to tone the board with gray acrylic paint or Gesso otherwise it's hard to cover the board on the first shot. Thank you for visiting my blog, this has become my favorite part of this project and the best part is your comments, I love reading them.

50 Paintings in 50 days

Red Hot Flames #16
I started this one last week and spent days working on it a little bit at a time. The detail in the laces and reflections held me back. I had almost given up Sunday night, but being that I'm so behind, I decided to stay with it until I was done, finally at 12:30 a.m. I stopped.

50 Painitngs in 50 days

A Lighter Shade of Pale

The above is the same wedding shoe as White Wedding Day (Billy Idol) except it's pointing to the left. This was finished yesterday, Sunday. Remember the song by Procol Harum? "and so it was that later as the Miller told his tale that her face, at first ghostly, turned A Whiter Shade of Pale." Some make reference about this song to Chaucer's Canterbury tales; The miller's Tale ("the miller told his tale") both are about seduction and sex and so are wedding shoes, among other things.

50 Paintigns in 50 days

White Wedding Day
This was completed Sunday, I was trying to hurry up because I thought it was Monday. I hurried up, not being very difficult since it was all different tones of white. This is a wedding shoe from the 1990's.

50 Paintings in 50 days

I finished this painting on Saturday night very late after going out. It was particularly difficult, I'm not sure if it was the fact that the board was sanded too smooth or it was the transparency of the paint. I could not get the right color intensity and my dark shadows were just not working. I think it still needs work and I don't feel it's as good as my other pieces. At this point I was still behing about four pieces.

Happy Valentine's Day

This is a collage I did with Picasa. See the painting below. Please feel free to post comments. XXX's

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Happy Valentine's Day. A very red pair of patent leather boots. I love the reflection of the boots on the floor as though she is standing on a mirror. This project isn't getting any easier, but I did figure out that starting several speeds up the process a bit. I'm still four behind and one is on the board 80% completed. I haven't even had my coffee yet, but wanted to post this early for this special holiday.

50 Paintings in 50 days

One of my naughty Valentine paintings, I wasn't going to paint this one, but decided to be bold and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I made the background soft and pink so the boots wouldn't look so hard, being that they are very naughty. Also, I was going to extend the pink background all the way across under her stomach and decided against it because it made it look more attractive. Click on the picture to see the brush strokes, thanks K for the suggestion.

50 Paintings in 50 days

Crazy Zebra was completed last night, it was easy until I got to the black stripes then I had to use a one hair paint brush to do the stripes. You have to remember these are 6x6 paintings and they don't seem small until you get to the detail. I have three others in progress right now, a red pair of boots with red flames, a red pair of shiny boots and a pair of black high heel stiletto over the knee boots, they are all very, very sexy. Hey! it's Valentines day tomorrow and what better way to celebrate then to paint naughty shoes.

50 Paintings in 50 days

The painting above was corrected as to the background. It seemed that the background was too bright and was competing with the subject. Place a comment by clicking comment and let me know what you think. Is it improved?

Rather simple to paint and that is the reason I decided to do it, now that I look at it, it seems rather ugly and it isn't until I take the picture that I'm able to see the mistakes in value, i.e., some areas are too dark, too light and too warm. My brushes are shot and now I'm using a magnifying glass to better see errors. This photo is blurry, I will have to take a better picture tomorrow morning when the natural light is best, I was in a hurry. I'm officially behind, I should have 13 completed by tonight, the above is #9, I have two near completion on the easel. I have five days off and I better use them to get ahead.

50 Paintings in 50 day #8

This is a struggle, it is only after I look at it on the big screen that I start to see all the mistakes and it's back to the drawing board. I think I'm one behind, at the end of today I should have 10 shoes, oops! I'm still missing one. Better hurry up, I'm doing this today in between doing laundry and dying my hair, gee I wish I was at the movies.

50 Paintings in 50 days

This is an extremely difficult task, I told my friend "K", because I have other things to do and I can't paint fast without sacrificing the quality of what I think should be a decent effort. This was when I had completed five of the 50 and wanted to quit, his answer: "You've done ten percent already" and Thank You for putting the theory "My glass is half full" into perspective. The Mickey Mouse slippers belong to my nephew Grant Anton, he wore them frequently and we always remember him in these happy slippers. The shadows where difficult because they were so light, but after several tries I finally was able to make them look decent.

50 Paintings in 50 days

Candy apple red shoe #6. I really enjoyed painting this super shiny red shoe, took me a couple of hours. I had trouble getting the reflections right and the value on top of the shoe gave me trouble because I had to mix a very dark rich red to give it dimensionality.

50 Paintings in 50 days

The above is the corrected painting, or is it? I'm not sure it's an improvement, it looks overworked. This one is baffling me, to top it off while I was working on it, I was in the process of dyeing my hair, I saw at the Salon how they dye eyebrows, so I put dye on my eyebrows. Except that while I was painting I got hungry and decided to eat something from the fridge and rest a little, forgetting all this time about the dye on the eyebrows. Now my eyebrows look like they have been tattooed (LOL). Another Aha! moment, however, not in the area I wanted, painting shoes while painting eyebrows; the cosmetologist shoud warn "Don't try this at home".

The missing shoe No.# 4 and my worst effort, it cost so much time in corrections. I had to scrape it off with a dental tool after I realized the color wasn't working, even after taking this picture I continue to work on instead of giving up. When trying to upload this set of pictures, Picasa wouldn't load, so I had to do research and load them via the camera. I will keep trying to rescue and when all rescue efforts to resuscitate fail I will replace it with something that will not be such a challenge, for now I'm determined not to give up on my purple passionata. The problem I found is that patent leather has so many reflections it gets weighed down with detail and I end up feeling like I'm painting miniatures. I'm keeping my head above water, but it's touch and go, two o clock in the morning desperate finishing efforts.

50 Paintings in 50 days

Hi, I'm missing a shoe, sort of. This is shoe number #5, I finished it today at 12:30 a.m., yesterday's shoe is missing because I need to revise the color, most likely I will publish the finished piece tomorrow. I'm not behind, even thought it has been difficult to stay ahead. The problem being that I start off late, I'm not a morning person, my party begins at eight or nine, so here I am in the wee hours of the morning posting to the blog. For those people who have to make a living from their art, I feel for you, it's painful to force yourself to produce weather you are inspired or not. I used to paint when I felt inspired to create and the only reason I'm pushing myself is because I believe that something will come of this, that I will learn and that there will be a few Aha! moments and I think the learning experience is worth it. My two loves come together; painting and shoes. I had to teach myself to paint whites, but it wasn't so hard because I used to do watercolor and used the white of the paper as white, this time the blacks drove me crazy. I had to add minute amounts of dark blues, reds and white in order to differentiate some of the areas for detail. This time I tried to pick an easy pair and it didn't turn out to be so easy (took me 3.5 hours to complete), I'm also running out of "easy" shoes, I have 45 to go; I'm perched on a ledge, question is will I fall? The best thing today, I learned to make a beautiful khaki green from Viridian, Cad lemon Yellow, Cad red light and a bit of Alizarin Crimson which was used for the bottom part of the foreground, then I added a lot of white and extended it to the top. Good night and I guess I'll be late for work tomorrow, thank God for Starbucks.

50 paintings in 50 days

I painted an easy one today, it was 10:00 p.m. and I was running out of time, when I finished this sketch I thought it was 2:00 a.m. It's a rather simple, beautiful and soft ballet shoe. Still more work is needed and I've decided that the corrections and finishing touches will be made as I go onto others so that I don't get lost in the details and fall behind. Postings and critiques are welcome.